


Tears of Artistry

by EthelPhantom



Series: Ethel's Constagami/DamiGami December 2020 [7]
Category: Constantine (TV), DCU, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Constagami December, Crying, Established Relationship, F/M, Feelings, Feels, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, MariBat, Sad Idiots In Love, Songfic, They are trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EthelPhantom/pseuds/EthelPhantom
Summary: Constagami December, day 7: Make you cry.They may not be made for each other, but... they will still try.
Relationships: John Constantine/Kagami Tsurugi
Series: Ethel's Constagami/DamiGami December 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035531
Kudos: 3





	Tears of Artistry

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't take me nearly two weeks to write or anything, nope. Not at all. Lies and slander. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

**I let every thought  
** **Thread a weft of yarn**

They are sitting in the bedroom, John swiping Kagami’s tears away carefully. She doesn’t cry often. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do, but he tries anyway. He doesn’t want her to be hurting. 

**Weaving through the warps  
** **A tapestry of us**

At… at times, things seem to go well. At times, it feels like things won’t end in a catastrophe, and at times, it feels like eventually, they will be able to smile and merely recall these moments with fondness. 

At times, it feels like their efforts and struggles will end up creating a beautiful result with time, but there is no proof that it would truly happen.

**If I make my arms, the home you seek**

They are trying. They really are. They try to make everything work, and they try to have things be alright. It’s difficult, but they are trying their best, and that should be enough,  _ right?  _

…

It’s not, it really isn’t.

Even then, every day ends the same way — Kagami in John’s arms, often crying, often shaking. Often, she’s trembling like a leaf in a wind, unable to stop as her fears and nightmares take over her, as her greatest terrors take form in her mind and won’t leave her alone, won’t let her be in peace. 

Because it doesn’t work like that. Terrors aren’t kind. They aren’t considerate. 

John tries to hold her together in those times. He doesn’t say a word, just holds her and runs his fingers through her hair. 

It matters more to her than she can ever express. More than she knows  _ how  _ to express.

**If I sway my brush, would I capture thee?**

And then, of course, there are nights when it’s the other way around. There are nights when John is the one in pain. Kagami pushes her problems aside, places them on a shelf and sits there with him. He doesn’t seem to like being touched a lot of the time when he’s in this state, but she sits there with him, next to him, and has her palm open if he needs to hold her hand. Both of them know not to judge the other.

Neither of them does it. 

It… It sort of works for them, at least most of the time. 

**If I hang your scars, in a gallery**

Not… Not always, though. 

It’s not that they  _ mean  _ to do it. It really isn’t. In fact, they often try the exact opposite! They are making an attempt at helping the other, but at times… they fail. It’s not that surprising, honestly. Both of them are broken. They do not know how to deal with a lot of things. They most certainly do not know how to deal with one another shattering.

And really, it’s sad because they’re  _ trying _ , they’re trying so hard. They’re doing their best, and yet.  _ Yet.  _

It’s a pity. 

It can’t be helped.

And when they find each other’s scars — the ones John has from fighting demons, the ones Kagami has from fencing, the ones John has from his childhood, the ones _Kagami_ has from _her_ childhood —, it is a little difficult to know how to make the other feel better, or how to keep themselves from saying things that will set them off. 

It gets worse — and oh, it gets  _ so much worse  _ — when John finds out about the pale lines on her forearms.

It gets so much worse when he finds out about the thin scars decorating her forearms and chest and stomach.  _ So, so much worse.  _ He has no idea what to do. He tries, yes, and she appreciates it — tries to appreciate it — but it’s difficult because  _ she’s hurting and she’s hurting worse.  _

He ends up hiding everything from sharpeners to papers to kitchen knives in their house. He can find them, but they aren’t easily accessible to her. It is for the best. 

Yet it makes her feel like she’s being treated like a child.

Like when she  _ was  _ a child.

Controlled.

That does not help.

**As a work of artistry**

But they manage. At least, they manage for now. That’s what matters the most, right? 

_ Right? _

**May I clear your slate and wipe your conscience  
** **Lay it on another shelf**

...It isn’t.

That doesn’t stop them. They’ll still try. 

They try to help one another.

**I'll be anything you ever ask  
** **I'll take your memories upon myself**

The problem is, sometimes trying isn’t enough. And sometimes they try the wrong things. Sometimes they try the things that will hurt more, and that is not good. Of course, it isn’t good. They can’t help it.  _ They  _ aren’t good. 

It’s just a way of life, in a way. 

And sometimes they are helping, and it does help, but it also creates more problems and sometimes it breaks them more. Using memory magic doesn’t come without a price, not to either one of the parties. That is the problem, sadly.

To the one whose memories are taken away, it creates an empty, blank gap in their line of memories. It hurts. It’s hard to work with it, because you know something is missing but cannot do anything about it, cannot recall what’s missing or even  _ when  _ is missing sometimes, and even if the memories will no longer affect them, the lack and loss of them does. On the upside, it helps them, but on the downside, there are just as many if not more problems left as the new hurt will be there. 

To the one who takes the memories away, it gives more memories. Their dreams are hunted by nightmares the other one bore, their time awake is filled with ghosts that don’t belong there. They won’t be able to let go of them. The memories become  _ theirs,  _ and there is nothing they can do about it, and yet.  _ Yet.  _

The price is high.

Kagami does it anyway.

John isn’t happy with her.

**If you keep my thoughts and thieve my wisdom  
** **I will find another shell**

Why wouldn’t she? She wants to help the one she loves. She wants to give him a chance to be in peace without the burden of hurtful memories, without having to carry the weight that his past puts on him. 

She means well. 

She just… doesn’t  _ do  _ it well.

**I don't ever want to be the selfish reason  
** **You don't ever find yourself**

Yet, it isn’t like he is much better off, not really. 

He meddles with her sense of time. He meddles with it because she’s so often anxious about not having the time to do anything, is afraid of never being able to catch up to what she should, and it makes her anxious. He thinks that if he meddles with her sense of time, she’ll feel as if she has more time to get through the basic tasks. 

It’s sweet, in a sense, and he means well — just like she does when she takes his memories upon herself — but it doesn’t help, not really. Not mostly. Not when she finds out about it, because to her, it only looks as if he doesn’t think she’s capable of doing those things without his help, without his magic. 

It isn’t a good thing.

They are trying, but all they manage is mess up.

**I felt every thought  
** **Claw the strands apart**

It really is terrible. It gets terrible, easily, too fast, and they fall too hard. They aren’t the best for each other. 

It doesn’t stop them.

Not even when they feel and  _ know  _ that things aren’t going well, because they keep sticking together and they keep doing their best and they keep failing.  _ It doesn’t stop them. _

**Weaving into knots  
** **A travesty of us**

Because while at times, things seem to go well, it isn’t always so.

It isn’t so  _ most of the time,  _ and it hurts. It’s bad for them. They need to stop, but there is something that pulls them back together and something that keeps them from leaving. Something that keeps them from saying goodbye.

At times, things seem to go well, yes, but at times — and at  _ most  _ times, their lives are crashing down and so is their will to go on. Yet at the same time, they become more and more stubborn about staying together and doing their best to stay together. It does not make things easier. 

And so, they become a travesty. 

**If I stay my arms, and I pull your sleeve**

They consider leaving. They consider leaving regularly, even, but all of those thoughts end when they see the other again. Their hearts won’t let them leave. 

John tries to leave. Kagami simply nods and sits on the sofa in the living room, watching sadly, but she won’t tell him to stay. She has no right to — if he wants to go, then she has to let him go. She silently recites spells to create a protective shield around him, something to slow the demons down before they can get to him. It will give him time to react.

He doesn’t leave because he can’t bring himself to leave Kagami. She is the only good thing in his life. The only thing that won’t kill him and the only thing that hasn’t died despite him caring about her. 

Kagami tries to leave. John nods but before he lets her leave — and he will, she has the right to, doesn’t she? —, he stops her to give her a necklace with a protective spell, a symbol that will help her stay safe. It isn’t a guarantee, but it will give her better chances at survival.

She doesn’t leave because she can’t forgive herself if she leaves John. He is the only solid thing she can lean against in this cruel world, the only thing she can trust not to disappear at the worst moment. 

The sharp edges hurt but maybe they can survive. 

Maybe the edges can be softened somehow.

**If I snap my brush, would you trust in me?**

Every now and then, their friends — acquaintances, really, do they actually have friends aside from one another? — question why they are so stubborn, why on Earth do they refuse to leave if it would be better for both of them.

The answer never differs despite the fact neither of them knows or understands what the other says. 

_ They give up things for me. I trust them.  _

And it is true, except the problem is that it isn’t really enough for things to be alright. It’s clear because neither of them is alright. Yes, they keep giving up what they enjoy for the other, and in ways, both of them place the other above and before themselves, and because both of them do it, it sort of works. 

Except it doesn’t because they aren’t good for each other in so many different ways even if they do everything else by the book, even if they don’t hurt one another on purpose ever.

**If I trace your scars, with the broken piece**

They don’t hurt one another on purpose. No, that isn’t alright with them, and they will make it clear and obvious. To John and everyone he knows,  _ Kagami is untouchable,  _ and if someone does do something to her, John will, upon finding out, make them pay. 

To Kagami and everyone that knows her,  _ John is not within limits,  _ and should she find out someone has done something bad to him, should she find out he has been hurt, she will ensure they will regret the day they were born. 

Too bad they can’t recognise it when they themselves hurt the other. 

_ Too bad they never understand when crossing a line is just that, crossing a line.  _

**_Too bad they never understand when crossing a line is too much despite whatever reasons and purpose they had at first._ **

Kagami ignores the bad things John does in favour of not making him feel bad about himself, to ensure he won’t ever have to blame himself for such things. Because of course she does, he’s just trying to help, and isn’t it quite ungrateful if she doesn’t give him some leeway for the other things he does when he mostly is just trying to make her as happy as possible, as safe and comfortable as possible? 

John puts protective spells on her — no one is able to wound her quite literally because no one can enter her space, not without her allowing them into it because she trusts them, not if she feels bad or uncomfortable. John casts spells on their house that tell him if anyone in the house is hurt.  _ Immediately.  _ These are made solely because he knows she has (had) a tendency to hurt herself. Perhaps she still has. 

She doesn’t, because she literally cannot, because his magic won’t allow her to, and because her privacy has been invaded. 

She hates it. He knows it. She won’t say a thing about it because she understands he’s just trying to help, it’s just that he’s going too far. He isn’t repentant because he’s trying to help her. He doesn’t want her hurt, he doesn’t want  _ her  _ to hurt  _ herself.  _ If that line and boundary must be crossed, then it must be. 

**As a work of artistry**

It is only a glimpse of all that they do. 

Sadly so.

**May I clear your slate and wipe your conscience  
** **Lay it on another shelf**

So either way, they are not… They aren’t good. They try, yes, and they cannot be faulted for that as both of them really, truly do love the other. Both of them want the best for the other, but there’s this little fact that makes things difficult — they have both forgotten how love is supposed to work.

It’s difficult to learn how to love with someone who doesn’t know how to love either.

**I'll be anything you ever ask  
** **I'll take your memories upon myself**

And that’s why it’s impeccable how long they  _ have  _ survived.

By all logic, they shouldn’t have. 

They are not whole enough to manage, they know too little love to succeed. 

Yet, they outlive anyone who’s tried before. They outlive them, they outdo them, and they are, in every way, a miracle come reality. It’s strange.

**If you keep my thoughts and thieve my wisdom  
** **I will find another shell**

Perhaps… Perhaps it’s that they won’t allow themselves anything less but succeed. Perhaps it’s that they themselves consider it a failure only if and when they die, only when that is the only option. 

Perhaps their promise and their agreement have something to do with it. 

Perhaps it’s that they decided to stay together for a century before thinking whether they should separate, and neither of them is willing to give up. They are far too stubborn for such, they’re way too stubborn for it to be healthy for themselves or anyone else either, really.

**I don't ever want to be the selfish reason  
** **You don't ever find yourself**

And as it is. They do love one another. They would give anything up for the other. Maybe, in a way, it works  _ because  _ of that.

Maybe the universe and the stars have taken pity on them. Maybe they’ve taken pity on them because both of them have been hurt so much during their lives and have lost even more, and maybe it’s that they are actually putting effort into it. They’re not even expecting the relationship to work like magic. It’s not how life is.

Or maybe it’s the gods that have taken pity on them. 

(It’s unlikely. Gods are assholes.)

**Watching the needle thread through every pore**

So, in any case, they aren’t good for one another and that is clear, that is far too obvious of a fact. They hate it, but there isn’t really… anything they can do about it. 

Not at this point, not anymore.

Not ever again.

**She told me shading made everything more**

Because two people, both incapable of love, aren’t the best people to try and be examples of how to love to the other. That is simply not how it or anything, really, works. Especially not in the lives of Kagami and John. 

They aren’t allowed to find happiness and actually keep it.

That isn’t something either of them was born into this world for. 

**Beautiful but I don't see it at all**

...They were born for a reason, yes.

They were born for an important reason, something that was to affect tens of thousands of lives, something that was to affect hundreds of years to come.

The problem is, it isn’t their lives or anything they will do during those that affect the world’s state. Certainly, what they do isn’t meaningless either, but that isn’t what will have an impact on their world. No. 

It’s their deaths, and how them being  _ unable  _ to do what they were meant to do affects the world.

Because their purpose was never to affect the world in a positive way.

**I'm more deranged than before**

It’s not that it’s fair, because it isn’t. It isn’t fair that they need to suffer. It’s not fair that is all their lives are worth to the world.

They can’t do anything about it either way.

**Standing in paints as it pools on the ground**

And… Perhaps it’s also how the one to outlive the other will survive, how they will react.

They just wanted to dry the other’s tears and make them happy.

They aren’t allowed to.

Instead, they have to watch the red paint — or is it blood? They no longer know, everything is just too much and everything hurts and confuses them — pool around them on the ground, unsure whether it’s theirs or their beloved one’s or someone completely else’s, because they aren’t alone, because there is just something wrong and they’re not sure what it is. 

John is the one to outlive Kagami  in this life. In another one, it’s Kagami, because even if they don’t know it, they keep meeting each other life after life after life, and in one reality and all the ones following that one. He hates it. 

**Colours of empathy blending with doubt**

And as Kagami bleeds out in front of him, he can’t do a single thing about it even as he tries. He tries, and he tries his best, but his best isn’t enough. 

Was it ever?

There is nothing he can do.

He cannot even avenge her death as the one responsible for it is dead, too.

**Witnessing everything melting around**

So, for John has to witness her die, has to watch as he can’t do a thing about her death, can’t save her life,  _ can’t sacrifice his for hers,  _ he dies inside. 

He has to b e the one to witness their lives falling apart — hers because she’s  _ dying,  _ and his because  _ she’s _ the one dying. Their lives fall apart in one night and since when has he ever been allowed to repair lives?

**Until I drown**

It doesn’t take long before he, too, is dead.

**May I clear your slate and wipe your conscience  
** **Lay it on another shelf**

Still, their deaths won’t occur for a long time still. They aren’t old enough. They are in their early twenties, and even the universe itself pities them enough to allow them more time upon this Earth — they live until they’re in their fifties, or perhaps they even get to see their sixties. They don’t know. 

The world doesn’t even know yet.

**I'll be anything you ever ask  
** **I'll take your memories upon myself**

Both of them wish to be able to be the one to dry the other’s tears and heal the other’s scars. That is as simple as it can be, as simple as they can put it, and they put all of their energy into it. 

John holds her through the nights when she is not able to keep the trauma and memories of abuse somewhere hidden deep within, petting her hair and pressing soft kisses on her face, on her brows and eyelids, kisses away the tears flowing down her cheeks.

The nights when John wants nothing but to find a proper fucking demon to get him out of this life because he remembers how everyone up until Chas and then Kagami has treated him in his life, from his father to everyone afterwards, she doesn’t leave his side. Instead, Kagami plays with his hair, sitting beside him and humming quiet tones she remembers listening to when she was a child. 

They might not know how to deal with the other’s trauma, but they never leave them alone to suffer, because that’s so much worse. 

(Because both of them are terrified they’ll be abandoned.)

They cannot help but fear it.

  
  


**If you keep my thoughts and thieve my wisdom  
** **I will find another shell**

So yes, they are trying, they are trying their very best because they love each other. It’s just that love isn’t always enough, love isn’t always sufficient to give people a happy life, especially not if the entire universe conspires against them despite pitying them, too. Because even their ways of helping one another… aren’t safe.

They end up hurting each other more than anyone else has ever been able to, in a way, because they simply do not suit each other. If they cannot help one another without causing more pain, how can they be expected not to hurt each other when they  _ aren’t  _ being as careful?

Because they are a self-destructive mess. That’s it, they are a self-destructive mess, a bomb ready to self-detonate, and both Kagami and John keep trying to hold their beloved one from falling apart. It would work, if they didn’t keep trying to build the other up with pieces of themselves, because that only ever results in them breaking apart, too.

You cannot help anyone else if you lose all that you yourself are, after all. 

They don’t understand this.

  
  


**I don't ever want to be the selfish reason  
** **You don't ever find yourself**

This is why they lose themselves and each other while they are at it. 

Because they make one another cry more than anyone else has ever been able to.

It simply seems that when they are around each other, crying is the only choice they are given. They only have one option, and it is forever ‘cry and lose’. 

They make one another cry despite the fact they both thought they had locked their tears away years and years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story while I try to work on the rest of the things (as well as my freaking Secret Santas).
> 
> Love you all!
> 
> Oh, and do join the [Constagami server](https://discord.gg/k3MrJUFjjS) on Discord!


End file.
